It seems like only yesterday that cloud computing was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Not only did cloud computing revolutionise web development and hosting, but all software and in doing so it sprouted a whole new era of SaaS companies.

I keep hearing from I.T. operations managers that they are wondering where the next big change in DevOps is going to come from. As cloud computing changed the whole I.T. operations industry overnight, so did it change the way DevOps was conducted. DevOps went from being a small time engineering role, to a full time department that touched almost every aspect of the business.

So where to from here? Does DevOps evolve into a fully-fledged I.T. department, or does it dissolve into the greater field of I.T. as part of the No-Ops movement? All this and more will be discussed below.

The No Ops movement has been one of the most controversial developments in the world of DevOps. Certainly, from the perspective of certain members of the DevOps community, this is a disaster waiting to happen.

The No Ops philosophy runs on the underlying premise that I.T. Operations is a redundant function, and that developers should be the ones who control server load and capacity, testing environments and all the other functions a DevOps person would usually do.

The concept behind this is that having a specialist DevOps creates a silo’d and exclusive role. The irony is that without a DevOps person, you cannot set up a No Ops environment. No Ops only seems to work if the DevOps function trades in its controlling position and takes on more of a training role, working to educate the organisation instead of dictating I.T. strategy.

In this way, it’s only No Ops in the sense that DevOps isn’t in the drivers seat.

DevOps is now moving at such a fast pace that it is little wonder organisations are able to keep up with it. Not only do new technologies come out every day, but the concept that DevOps is simply just I.T. strategy is naïve nowadays. The whole function of I.T. strategy has moved away from the core concept of operational excellence, into something far more customer centric. At this rate, organisational change management will have to factor in how I.T. strategy can change alongside I.T. development.

Now, here is the kicker. DevOps could change almost entirely overnight with the widespread adoption of blockchain technology. There are huge implications for I.T. operations if blockchains are used to host data, that were a shift to occur for data hosting to the blockchain that the very role of DevOps may need to be rebranded.

DevOps with blockchain technology involved becomes a matter of transcending the traditional server model, and viewing database load in terms of users contributing to the blockchain. This becomes very similar to the way we viewed BitTorrent only a few years ago, except this time it’s legal and scalable.

Devops will change in ways we would never have expected. The next decade could look like something out of Sci-Fi like Star Trek, or it may turn slightly sour like Black Mirror. All we know is that it’s exciting either way.